


Okay

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Fictober 2019 [10]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23569948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Field medic Julian and ambulance driver Reyja discuss their future.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Series: Fictober 2019 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696495





	Okay

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fictober prompt: "I'm with you, you know that?"

The ambulance jostled as Julian hauled himself up the passenger side, almost forgetting to duck under the canvas weatherproofing as he pinched the bridge of his nose and sat down, distress written plainly across every pale feature.

“Oh, Juley. When was the last time you slept? You look exhausted.” Reyja leaned across the bench seat to rub his hunched shoulders.

“I can’t rest. Not now.” His hands fluttered anxiously, large white birds in a cage too small for them. He let his gaze fall on her for a moment before tears began to well in his eye and he choked back a sob. “Oh, Reyja, what are we going to do?”

“What is it? What happened?”

He scooted closer to her, long legs straddling the gear shifts as he engulfed her in his arms. The March air was unseasonably chill, like the northern bite of Petrograd had come down to Bessarabia’s balmy shores just to mock him. “There is no longer a Czar in the Winter Palace, my darling. The Russian Empire has fallen.”

Reyja blinked. “But… but isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Well, yes.” He paused, searching for words while he stroked her hair. “Yes and no. Nicholas is, was, about as much use on the throne as I would be. But we’re at war! And I know the men who’re leading the push.” Julian’s eye grew hard. “They wouldn’t know what it takes to see us out of this mess. That’s what matters, I say. Finish one fight before starting another.”

“You said this is a long time coming.” She snuggled deeper into his embrace, sharing her warmth with him. Outside the ambulance, the camp was growing quiet for the night, laughter and shouts fading into snores as lanterns dimmed one by one. Crisp starlight speckled the night, holes punctured in velvet.

“It was. It is! And the man deserves it, make no mistake.” He shook his head sadly and sagged back against the hard leather seat. “Ahh, but couldn’t it all have waited just a little longer?”

When she glanced up at him, he was already looking back, a bittersweet smile settled into the purple bags under his eyes. “Julian? Why are you looking at me like that?”

A great sigh shifted his ribs. “I couldn’t possibly articulate how much our time together has meant to me, my love, or how much I— how much I’ll miss you.”

Reyja swallowed hard, clenching her fist around the edge of his jacket. “Don’t do this—” she began, but he cut her off.

“I have to go back. I have to see Pasha. She’ll have been front and center at the marches, and the factory rallies too, I bet, and I wouldn’t put it past her to try and use her connections with the Princesses to try to change the mind of someone she shouldn’t.”

“So why can’t I come with you?” It took every ounce of control she possessed to keep her hands and voice from shaking.

“Oh, my dearest, you’re an American. It isn’t your fight, and even if it was, how could I live with myself knowing that I brought you straight into a viper’s nest?”

Reyja narrowed her eyes and pushed hard on his stomach, using the strength she’d built up wrestling her unruly ambulance over the unforgiving terrain to force him against his seat. “I’ve always been interested in vipers, actually. And I think I’d rather be in charge of choosing my battles for myself, if that’s alright with you, Doctor.”

He fell through pink and landed in crimson, blood rushing to his cheeks as he shifted in her grasp. “I— that’s not what I— Reyja, love, please— darling, you must understand…”

“Oh, what do I need to understand?” She dropped his jacket with a ragged inhale, barely hanging on to the threads keeping her from falling apart. “That you want to plunge headlong into another stupid, dangerous situation when this one’s not even over yet? What happened to ‘one fight at a time,’ or does that not apply to you, only to everyone else?” She scrubbed angrily at the stubborn tears that leaked out without her permission. “Julian, I love you. I would and will go anywhere with you. But deciding my fights? I decided to make this whole fucking war my fight! My country is sitting over there across the ocean profiting off of both sides while good men die!” She flung a wild gesture at the fading scrap of sunlight still illuminating the western horizon and nearly hit the windshield. “It’s been almost three years and they’ve done nothing! As far as I’m concerned, I’m no more American than you are. Not anymore. So if that’s your big hurdle for taking me with you, I’m not hearing it.”

Julian slumped. “But you don’t speak Russian, my dear.”

“So? I don’t speak Serbian either, but here I am, helping Serbs. I can say hello and please, and you can teach me enough to get by otherwise. I’ll pick it up quick enough when I’m in the midst of it in Petrograd.”

“Reyja.” He took her hands in his and sighed again, more serious than she’d ever seen him. “Please listen to me. I love you. I love you so much my heart might burst from it. I don’t think I truly lived until I met you.” He managed a smile, though it was only a shadow of the dashing one he usually gave. “But if you come with me, I… I can’t ensure that you’ll be safe.”

She pulled one hand free to cup his cheek and he leaned into her touch like a postulant blessed by a saint. “I’m not asking you to do that, Julian. I know you’re asking it of yourself, though. And I understand. Really, I do.” Her thumb rubbed across his cheekbone. He’d missed a spot shaving that morning and the coarse ginger stubble rubbed rough against the whorls on the pad of her finger. “But will I be any safer here? Or anywhere else the SWH might deploy me? Driving through barbed wire tangles, storms of shellfire, hauling sick men from dawn to dusk… and all of it without you to look forward to?” Reyja shook her head. “We’ll all be dead someday, Juley. Until then, let me live beside you.”

Julian took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm in a futile attempt to hide the tears spilling from his eyes. He added another and another, folding her hand closed to place one on each of her knuckles. If the future was kind, they would both live long enough for him to cover every inch of her in kisses, beside each other to the end. If it wasn’t? Well, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to face that together too.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”


End file.
